Cavaliers Cricket Club, Colchester, Essex, England

27 August 2010

Ray to the Rescue

Ray Smith struck an excellent, unbeaten 54 to rescue the First XI in a close fought encounter with Great Bentley. Together with Danny they put on close to a century partnership before Danny was controversially given out caught behind, leaving 20 runs to get and just 2 wickets in hand. With the last pair at the wicket Ray continue to play his shots and the approach paid dividends as a flurry of boundaries took us past the respectable Bentley total of 182.
Despite the Cavaliers only having a single game, availability was poor and we took the field with just 10 men. Fortunately Bentley were struggling with summer holidays too and were also one short of a full team. Darren returned to his old position taking the new ball and bowling a very tidy spell, but Ray was also the pick of the bowlers keeping a tight off stump line to concede just 16 runs from his 10 overs. A great partnership between Rod and Joe Fowler forming the heart of the Bentley innings.

The Cavaliers reply started slowly with Simon and Darren happy to see off a few overs from the Fowler boys and the attack came on with the change of bowlers. Once the top order had been dismissed it was the partnership between Danny, batting down the order due to bruised hands, and Ray that won the game and extended our unbeaten sequence.